Obama backs down in health insurance contraception row

President Barack Obama has retreated from a new culture war with America's
Christian Right, agreeing to amend his health care system to prevent Roman
Catholic organisations from having to buy the morning-after pill for
employees.

Amid claims from Rick Santorum, the Republican presidential hopeful, that he was leading the US down a path ending in "the guillotine" for persecuted Christians, the president agreed to allow religious groups to omit contraception from staff health insurance packages.

"Religious liberty will be protected," Mr Obama said, in a press conference at the White House. But he insisted: "No woman's health should depend on who she is, or where she works, or what her health is or how much money she makes".

Under the redrawn scheme, health insurance companies will be forced to provide women with contraception for free if the religious school, hospital, charity or other group for which they work decide that they will not. Churches themselves were always exempt from the scheme.

The US Catholic Health Association welcomed Mr Obama's about-turn, stating that it "responded to the issues we identified that needed to be fixed".

However the US Conference on Catholic Bishops, whose president Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, led the protests against the original scheme, initially remained silent.

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What a White House aide called Mr Obama's "accommodation" came following more than a week of mounting pressure. After dozens of Catholic bishops sharply condemned the new rule in sermons across the US, Republican leaders vowed to place the row at the heart of the campaign for November's elections.

It had threatened to severely damage Mr Obama's support among Catholic voters, a group he won by 54 per cent to 45 per cent over his Republican rival John McCain in 2008. Aides claimed yesterday that he had always been anxious to avoid upsetting religious activists.

"This is very personal to the president," a White House official said. "He understands deeply how important it is the work the faith-based organisations do. He's always been committed to both preserving religious liberty and protecting women's health." Mr Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, yesterday attacked Mr Obama for forcing Catholics to fund things that were "against their basic tenets". The evangelical favourite, who is again surging into the lead of national opinion polls in the contest to become Mr Obama's challenger in November, declared: "Obamacare is a game-changer for America".

"But this is not about contraception," Mr Santorum told CPAC, the annual gathering of conservatives in Washington. "It is about government control of your lives – and it has got to stop".

He passed on a warning from Lady Thatcher to President Ronald Reagan on why she was unable to achieve more as prime minister. "The reason was the British National Health Service," Mr Santorum said. "Once people have that dependency they are never really free again".

In a swipe at Mitt Romney, the relatively moderate front-runner for the nomination, Mr Santorum promised activists: "We will not abandon the principles that made this country great for a hollow victory in November."

Ann Coulter, the Right-wing author, received a standing ovation and the morning's most enthusiastic applause for her remarks on Mr Obama's contraception policy: "This is not a Catholic issue. It is a freedom issue," she said. "What they are doing is using insurance for Communism".